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Linux.com: When Will Mom Use Linux?

"There's no doubt about it. I'm a power Linux user. I love to
live on the bleeding edge, installing development kernels minutes
after they are released or hacking the source code of my favorite
application because I want something to work differently, or
writing shell scripts to have my computer speak to me when new mail
arrives, announcing the sender and subject. This is the power that
Linux offers me. Still, despite all that power and flexibility,
Linux fails me in so many ways. And sometimes, in my moments of
weakness, I begin to lose faith in my favorite operating
system."

"Two years ago I was bold and naive enough to assert that my
mother would be able to switch to Linux by now. And if Linux were
ready for her, I think there's a pretty good possibility that she
would do just that. You see, she, like so many other people
with years of experience being an end user, despises Windows. Once
a month she routinely sends a 10-page essay on her latest Windows
escapade, which frequently ends with something like "and after 45
minutes on the phone with Compaq tech support, they had me
reinstall Windows and the problem seems to have gone away." She
always jokes about being an old dog that can't learn new tricks,
but given a feasible alternative to Windows, I think she'd
jump."

"Unfortunately, there is no feasible alternative, at least for
her. My mother, who is by no means technical but is also not
completely computer-phobic, likes to try new software. I wouldn't
have any idea how to explain how to install new software in Linux
to a person whose command line experience involves little more than
cd and dir from her DOS days -- which, I might add, is still
significantly more than many average users possess today. The best
case scenario would be to download the RPM (since I would recommend
she use RedHat, or some other RPM-based distribution), double click
on it in the file manager, and have it install without a
hitch."